Brinztech Alert: “AssetIntel” Service Selling Bulk Threat Intel Data (CrowdStrike, VT, Recorded Future)

Dark Web News Analysis

A threat actor on a prominent cybercrime forum has launched a new service called AssetIntel. This service acts as a “black market broker” for high-value Threat Intelligence (TI) data, offering bulk exports from premium platforms including VirusTotal, Triage, Hybrid Analysis, Recorded Future, and CrowdStrike. The data is delivered in CSV, JSON, or via cloud bucket access.

Brinztech Analysis:

• The Service Model: AssetIntel appears to be an API Scraper or a “reselling” operation. The operators likely have compromised enterprise accounts or legitimate API keys for these expensive platforms and are reselling the query results at a fraction of the cost to other criminals.
• The Inventory: The service claims to provide:
  • Malware Sandboxing Logs: (Triage, Hybrid Analysis) showing exactly how security tools detect specific malware strains.
  • IOC Feeds: (Recorded Future, CrowdStrike) Lists of IP addresses and domains that security vendors have flagged as malicious.
  • Sample Metadata: (VirusTotal) Hash details and detection rates.
• The Market: This service targets low-to-mid-tier cybercriminals who cannot afford a $50k/year Recorded Future subscription or corporate VirusTotal API access but want to check if their malware is detectable.

Key Cybersecurity Insights

This “democratization” of premium Threat Intelligence poses a strategic risk to defenders:

• Malware Evasion (Refinement): Malware authors can use this bulk data to “stress test” their code. By analyzing detection reports from CrowdStrike or Hybrid Analysis in bulk, they can identify exactly which behaviors trigger an alert and modify their malware to bypass modern EDRs.
• Bypassing “Paywalls”: Platforms like Recorded Future and CrowdStrike charge high premiums because their intelligence is proprietary. AssetIntel effectively breaks this exclusivity, giving ransomware groups the same situational awareness as the SOC teams defending against them.
• Operational Security (OPSEC) for Attackers: Normally, if an attacker uploads a sample to VirusTotal, defenders see it. By buying offline bulk datasets or using a proxy service like AssetIntel, attackers can gain insights without tipping off researchers that a new campaign is being prepared.
• Targeting Researchers: The datasets might inadvertently include private submissions from incident responders. If a SOC team uploads a sensitive internal document or binary to a sandbox (accidentally leaving it public), AssetIntel customers could hunt for these leaks to find vulnerabilities in specific companies.

Mitigation Strategies

In response to this new service, security teams and TI vendors must adapt:

• Sanitize Sandbox Submissions: Security analysts must strictly adhere to protocols: Never upload files containing PII, API keys, or internal network details to public sandboxes (like VirusTotal or Triage). Assume everything uploaded there will eventually be sold on AssetIntel.
• Rotate API Keys: TI vendors (CrowdStrike, VT) should audit their API usage logs for anomalous bulk scraping behavior (e.g., a single account downloading terabytes of reports) and revoke keys suspected of being used by AssetIntel.
• Behavioral Defense: Rely less on static IOCs (hashes/IPs) which attackers can now easily check and change. Focus on Behavioral Analysis and Heuristics, which are harder for attackers to “test” against static datasets.
• Monitor “Private” Scans: If your organization pays for private scanning options on VT or Hybrid Analysis, audit your configurations to ensure files are actually kept private and not leaking into the “community” stream that AssetIntel scrapes.

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